The Black Raven. Katharine Kerr
glance seemed to be an ordinary pottery bowl. When Niffa took it, she could see that in truth it was a pair of bowls, the outer stuck to the inner with more pitch. A thin black line of squiggly decoration covered the inner bowl, starting at the middle of the flat bottom, then winding in a tight spiral out to the rim.
‘It does confuse the spirits,’ Werda said. ‘That line of writing be a spell, and their curiosity does drive them into the bowl to read it, and then they slip between the bowls and cannot find their way out again. Once every some days Athra will fetch the trap away and leave another, that we may deal with the spirits in it once and for all.’
‘My thanks,’ Niffa said, stammering a little. ‘I do ken that I need such.’
‘Indeed?’ Werda looked at her with a twist to her mouth. ‘It gladdens my heart that you do.’
* * *
When the sun hung at the peak of the sky, Verrarc went to the stone council house, which stood on the north side of Citadel’s plaza. In front of it rose a line of stone columns, a reminder of the trees that had surrounded the meeting places of the Ancestors, back before any of the Rhiddaer folk lived in cities. With him Verrarc carried a lit candle in a tin lantern, though the day was bright through thin clouds. At the door he paused to examine the wardings painted on its white-washed surface. Against the fresh whitewash the thick black lines of Werda’s pitch and lampblack concoction stood out sharp and shiny. She had painted a design of two spiral mazes, one above the other, both amazingly intricate, to fascinate the spirits and keep them outside.
When Verrarc went inside, he closed the door carefully behind him. The stone room, with its high ceiling and rank of windows covered only by wooden shutters, was as cold as the open plaza. Earlier, Harl had on his orders laid a fire in the hearth and arranged the council’s round table and chairs in front of it. Verrarc knelt down and used his candle to get the tinder started. A few quick breaths and the kindling caught as well, but Verrarc kept his cloak wrapped around him. The fire would do little but take off the chill.
Chief Speaker Admi joined him in but a few moments, still wheezing from his climb up the steep path to the plaza. He waddled across the room and stood in front of the crackling fire.
‘Good morrow,’ Verrarc said.
Admi nodded and fumbled inside his cloak for a rag to mop his face. When Verrarc pulled out a chair, Admi sank into it with a little nod of thanks in his direction. Verrarc took a chair next to his.
‘Ah, there, my breath returns,’ Admi said finally. ‘Which does remind me. How fares your poor woman?’
‘Better, my thanks.’ Verrarc shuddered as the memory rose of Raena’s dead gaze. ‘Gwira did fear that fever would set in, but Raena, she’s been naught but sleepy. This sort of possession, Gwira did tell me, exhausts the poor soul who suffers it.’
‘No doubt.’ Admi’s fingers twitched in the warding sign. ‘It gladdens my heart that she came to no harm.’
‘My thanks. I do appreciate your nicety of feeling.’
‘Welcome, I’m sure.’
‘If only –’ Verrarc hesitated, but Admi’s eyes were all sympathy. ‘If only my cursed father had let me marry Raena, back before her father did betroth her elsewhere, none of this trouble would have fallen upon us.’
Admi nodded, considering.
‘True spoken,’ Admi said at last. ‘He did think her beneath you – ah. Here be Frie.’
The stocky blacksmith opened the door, then stood half in and half out while he looked over the warding.
‘No use in discussing your woman in front of him,’ Admi whispered.
‘I know,’ Verrarc said, and as softly. ‘It be his wife, she did always hate my Raena.’
Admi raised one eyebrow, then forced out a bland smile. Frie had shut the door; he strolled over, wrapped in a thick grey cloak with his ceremonial scarlet draped on top. His thick dark moustache glittered with frozen breath.
‘Good morrow, Frie,’ Admi said.
‘And to you both.’ Frie sat down across the table. ‘I did stop at old Hennis’s house, and he be too ill to come out in this cold, or so his servants did tell me.’
‘Huh!’ Admi snorted. ‘I’ll wager I know what does sicken him. He does hate to hold his tongue and smile when Werda talks of the gods and spirits.’
‘Can’t understand the man,’ Frie said. ‘Cursed obvious, it is, that the world be full of gods and spirits. Makes you wonder, it does, if his long years be muddling his mind.’
‘Well, now,’ Verrarc put in, ‘he does know the city laws off by heart still. His mind be sound enough on those matters.’
‘True enough,’ Admi said. ‘Now, where be Burra? Late, no doubt, as always.’
Frie grunted his agreement and wiped the melting frost from his moustache with the back of a soot-stained hand.
‘I’d hoped for a little chat among us before the Spirit Talker arrived,’ Admi went on. ‘Which we’ll not have if he doesn’t get himself here soon. I’d best have a private word with him. If he takes not his duty to the town seriously, well, then, there are others who long for a council seat.’
Not long after Burra did arrive, a skinny man with yellow hair, not much older than Verrarc and like him, a merchant who traded in the east. The councilmen barely had a chance at two private words, however, before Werda opened the door and strode in. Her apprentice followed with her arms full of bundled things. The Spirit Talker had bound her grey hair up into braids coiled round her head, and she wore the white cloak that normally she kept for ceremonial occasions. Without waiting to be asked, she pulled out a chair and sat down with her back to the fire. Athra laid her bundles down on the table, then stood behind her master’s chair.
‘I see that Hennis, he deigns not to join us,’ Werda said.
‘Er, just so,’ Admi said. ‘His servants did say that he be somewhat ill.’
‘Huh.’ Werda rolled her eyes. ‘It be a foolish thing to deny the power of the gods. He does get his blasphemies from the Mountain Folk, no doubt. They do mock the spirits, calling them but idle fancies.’
‘Er, mayhap,’ Admi said, ‘but no matter. There be four of us here in attendance upon the council, enough to make our decidings official.’ He paused, glancing around the table. ‘Now, then, by the power invested in me as Chief Speaker, I do open this meeting, come together to discuss the death of Demet, the weaver’s second son. Yesterday morn Verrarc, chief officer of the town militia, did venture that evil spirits did slay the lad. Does any here dispute this finding?’
Frie and Burra shook their heads in a no. Admi turned to Werda.
‘I too agree with Councilman Verrarc,’ Werda said. ‘This night past have I walked round Citadel, and in many a place did I find spirits lurking. These were all weak little things, and I did invoke the gods upon them, and they did flee. No one of them could have slain Demet, but together, in a pack, they would be dangerous.’
‘You have the thanks of the council,’ Admi said, ‘for sending them on their way.’
‘But will they come right back again?’ Frie broke in. ‘That’s what I be wanting to know.’
‘With spirits, it be a constant battle.’ Werda gestured at the bundles on the table. ‘I did bring spirit traps for each of you to take to your dwellings and one to stay here in the council house.’
‘You have our thanks,’ Admi said.
‘Most welcome,’ Werda continued. ‘And now I do ken that I’d best stay on guard against the spirits, which kenning be a weapon in itself. I have my own ways of standing watch.’
The councilmen all nodded as if they understood. Verrarc felt his stomach clench cold.